Tax Japanese are fond of adopting catch words and party cries. They are, like the French, very easily led by happy phrases. The inventor of a clover word, just hitting off the topic of the moment, is a power in the land, and if this word may be found to have more senses than one so much the better. Such a word is Jéi! It has been roughly and correctly rendered by the two English words "Barbarian expelling," but it seems, if we are to credit Kubota Kanichi in the Nichi Nichi Shimbun, to have by no means the offensive meaning which, at the first blush of the matter, it seemed to bear. The Japanese publicist is most. anxious to have Jd-i divested of all ils unfriendly and bard significance, and to have it henceforth understood in a Pickwickian sense.
Now, on the face of it, of course foreign expelling means the expulsion of foreigners; and as it is extremely improbable that foreigners will go of their own accord, there is a strong presumption that those who advocate such expulsion advocate really and traly the use of force and the unsheathing of the sword, This is the view of tha word which the Japan Mail has not perhaps very unnaturally taken, but the Japanese Press is anxious to free itself from any violent designs. do not mean to say that the treaty of friendship should be broken and the intercourse with foreigners, which is the means of getting civilized, should cease, or that the open ports should be closed and the foreign trade, which is the source of wealth, be stopped; nor do I mean to say that we should brandish our swords and attack and kill innocent Europeans, or carry lances and assassinate crimeless Americans."
What the writer did mean to say was something much milder than this. It appears that when he spoke of pelling the foreigner," he meant "ex. panding the spirit of opposition," and if there seems to be an undue shade of hostility in this phrase, we are informed that "expanding the spirit of opposition" really means "expanding, or strengthening, the feeling of being independent." Thus explained, of course, there is very little harm in Jé.i. The point to be considered is whether we can fally and absolutely accept this view of the word. There seems to be little difficulty in believing that Japan views with intense interest the march of historical events in Europe. Hor statesmen and her public writers watch the game of politics that is being played in the West, and they note how States rise in influence and importance, and how they sink in power and prestige. It is apparent that nations become great by "securing foundation of the country and repelling insult from abroad," and this is clearly a very different thing from driving out a number of resident foreigners, who exercise their industries in a country under treaty rights, which are mutually beneficial to all those concerned. A violent measure by which the " innocent Europeans "and " crimeless Americans" were driven from the Mikado's territories, if such a feat were possible, which
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.